The Practice

New Medmal Service

Dr. David Frankel from Iowa State and the Cambridge Economics Group has unleashed a new tool for plaintiff's attorneys handling medical malpractice claims. The program, MedMal Express, is an interactive website that allows you to figure out what a case is worth.

From Dr. Frankel:  The program lets the user see expected settlements in up to 20  medical malpractice cases (or case scenarios) in real time. Our predictions are tailored to the trial's location and to other specific case features. One advantage of the service is that a user can easily try out  different scenarios (e.g., to drop a defendant; to stress one accusation over another) to see what would happen if a Plaintiff's condition were to change.

I tried the program and like it. I received a report that provided me with information to help me evaluate a case. It looks nice and has useful information.

Dr. Frankel is offering a free two week trial. Just go to his website and you can sign up. After that, it is only $95 per month.

The Video Venue

WOW! Lisa Solomon is at it again. I am waiting for her to write a book on how to practice law AND run a side business or three. Here is Lisa's latest: The Video Venue!

The Video Venue, a new niche video website featuring humorous law-related videos, is hosting a contest to name the funniest legal video on the web. The Billable Hour Company, which sells humorous gifts and greeting cards for lawyers and legal professionals, operates The Video Venue and is sponsoring the contest.

The Video Venue, at www.video.thebillablehour.com, aggregates funny law-related videos from various web video sites (including YouTube, Revver and Google Video, among others). Videos are grouped into playlists organized by topic (such as law school, jury duty, court reporters and paralegals), practice area (such as contracts, torts and criminal law) and type of video (such as music, movie clips and commercials). Site visitors can also create their own playlists to personalize their viewing experience.

"So many of the law-related videos on sites like YouTube just bash lawyers," observes Billable Hour Company partner Mark Solomon. "But The Billable Hour Company’s success has proved that lawyers and legal professionals appreciate content—like the articles and poems featured in The Timesheet (our monthly e-newsletter)—and products—like our greeting cards and our CDs by groups with names like the Bar & Grill Singers and Bob Noone & the Well Hung Jury—that find humor in the law without attacking lawyers. That’s what TVV is all about." Solomon and his partner, Lisa Solomon, are both practicing lawyers as well as entrepreneurs.

Visitors can contribute to the site by suggesting videos that are already posted on the web, uploading videos, or even recording webcam videos. The Solomons review all submitted videos for content and quality before the videos are posted to TVV.

The widget can even be configured to display videos from a specified playlist. Tech-savvy lawyers can follow the site in their feed readers by subscribing to its main feed (for all recently added videos), or to feeds for individual playlists.

To encourage visitors to The Video Venue to actively participate in making TVV the best site for law-related videos on the web, the site is running a contest to name the funniest legal video on the web. The winner will receive a $50 Billable Hour Company gift certificate.

Site visitors can enter the TVV Funniest Legal Video on the Web contest by posting a video, or reviewing, commenting or tagging any video already on the site. One participating TVV community member will be chosen at random to win a $50 Billable Hour Company gift certificate. The highest rated video will be featured in the Timesheet as February's Video of the Month.

The contest runs through January 31. The winner will be announced in the February issue of The Timesheet.

New Resource for Trial Attorneys

Are you a trial attorney wondering what happens after trial? Have you ever thought about an issue and said "Hmmmm....I wonder how it works on appeal?" Ever curious about what goes on at the appeal stage of a case?

If you are curious, there is an interesting new blog out by Donna Bader, An Appeal to Reason. Her topics include how appellate attorneys fit into the picture, the role of appellate attorneys and why recycling your post trial briefs is a bad idea.

This is a great resource and an interesting look into the role of the appellate attorney. Take a look at it.